


The sweet fruit of a palm tree

by aralias



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, Watford Eighth Year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25476049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias
Summary: We have time to kill after we leave his aunt’s, so we go to a library—the big one—and then the reading room at the British Museum, where Baz steals at least half a dozen books.In which Baz takes Simon out on the town ... without much of a plan about what to do once he's got him there.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 32
Kudos: 149
Collections: Golden Days: a Simon Snow Series zine





	The sweet fruit of a palm tree

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in the ['Golden Days' fanzine](https://goldendayszine.tumblr.com/) in April 2020, written for the prompt 'new beginnings'. 
> 
> I collaborated with fanartist Milo! I'll add their art in the notes at the bottom once it's posted. 
> 
> \--
> 
> Credit for this idea goes entirely to Giishu. Originally it was going to be much heist-ier than it turned out. I started writing this over Christmas 2019, so to me it feels very Christmassy, but actually isn't at all, so it's probably OK to read in July ;)
> 
> Thank you to KrisRix for masterminding the zine, and also beta-ing this fic.

It’s not a date. Officially.

It’s just that Simon Snow and I are out in London—together—during the Christmas holidays. He’s wearing one of my jumpers under his duffel coat, and he has to walk close to me because there are so many tourists out today that he’d probably get lost if he didn’t. But we aren’t holding hands because it’s not a date. Because he’s straight. And he doesn’t like me. And because we’re only together _at all_ because he promised to help me find my mother’s killer.

Only a delusional idiot would treat _this_ —these hours, while we’re waiting for _vampires_ to finish eating people and return to their lair—as though it were a date. As though it was an opportunity for Simon Snow to fall in love with me.

It isn’t.

I’m wearing my favourite suit because I wanted to impress the vampires. With how much better I am than them. I assume I’ll need to intimidate them before they’ll tell me what they know.

Anyway, if it _was_ a date, it wouldn’t be a good one. Snow keeps yawning as I try and show him my favourite parts of London without explaining what I’m doing.

We walked along Regent Street because I’ve always loved the lights; he didn’t even look at them. Now we’re at the British Museum. It’s open late over Christmas—and Snow is fidgeting and barely glancing at any of the artefacts.

“Are you sure we can’t just go and find the vampires now?” he asks for the fourth time. (Obviously desperate for this to be over.)

“Just try and absorb some culture.”

I admit, I have only a hazy idea of what he likes to do in his spare time. (Does he even _have_ spare time? He seems to spend most evenings doing homework, following me, or out on missions for the Mage.)

I also admit that it’s not a complete surprise that Simon Snow doesn’t like museums.

But I wanted to bring him here.

I have some vague recollection that he’s fought mummies before, so I thought he might enjoy the Egyptian section. Or find it interesting, at least. (I _tried_. I didn’t take him to the Shakespeare exhibition on in the Reading Room, even though to all intents and purposes Shakespeare is the basis of modern spellcasting and Snow really _should_ be interested.)

I thought I might tell him about my mother.

I remember we came here together. About this time of year. I was only a child, four at the most (which means I probably don’t really remember it, but it feels as though I do). She lifted me up so I could look into one of the cases—down at the large, gold and black sarcophagus—and whispered in my ear.

_“Say hello to your great, great, great, great grandfather, Basilton.”_

Naturally, I believed her. (Children are idiots.) So completely that I tried to get her to bring him home with us. I said I wanted him to be buried at the Manor, not stuck in a case. Then I burst into tears when she told me that wasn’t possible and that, anyway, he preferred being in the museum.

_“Think about how boring it would be underground, Little Puff.”_

It’s one of the reasons I keep visiting her tomb back in Watford. Because I don’t want her to be bored. To be alone.

If Snow was actually here as my boyfriend, instead of as my back-up, I might tell him some of this. (Maybe. It might be a bit heavy for a first date, I’m not sure. I’ve never been on one.) I might even tell him that I was kidnapped. That I was alone, underground. That thinking of him was the only thing that got me through it.

It could be our first really intimate moment.

But when I turn to look at Snow, I find him frowning at me. It’s unsettling, and I snap at him before I realise what I’m doing.

“ _What_?”

“Just wondering if all the other vampires will _also_ look exactly like vampires,” Snow says.

I scowl at him. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“You know,” Snow says. “Dark. And cheekboney. Do you think it’s like goblins, and they’re all really fit?”

I’m not sure how to respond to that.

I think he said I was fit, although it probably doesn’t count because he _definitely_ called me a vampire.

“Why does it matter?” I ask Snow. “Thinking of asking one on a date?”

It’s a stupid—obvious—thing to say. I regret it immediately. But Snow takes it as a joke. Which I suppose it is. (Like the rest of my life.)

“A goblin? No thanks. I wouldn’t last the evening.”

He grins at me. (Like I’m in on the joke too, rather than the butt of it.) And my traitorous brain points out that at no point did Snow say he wouldn’t date a _vampire._

Crowley, I need to get hold of myself.

This _isn’t_ a date—I know that—but the problem is, I do actually want it to be one.

And Snow is _here_. Smiling at me in the Egyptian section of the British Museum. He didn’t have to come with me just because he had nowhere else to go.

What if he _does_ think about me the way I think about him?

What if I’m wasting my chance here?

I can do better. (Obviously getting depressed about my dead mother isn’t going to win him over.) All I need to do is remember a single thing that Snow likes doing and then find a way we can do it together. It can’t be too difficult. We’ve lived together for seven years, and I’m obsessed with him.

“Come on,” I tell him. “I’m done with Egyptian artefacts for today.”

Snow follows me to the stairs with no signs of protest.

“What now, then?” he asks.

I don’t know.

I know he likes food—we could go and eat dinner. But Snow’s already eaten three sandwiches since we arrived in London. And there are still five hours before it’s safe to try and find the vampires. I doubt even Snow could eat for _five_ hours. (Or perhaps he can, but I couldn’t.) We could go to a pub, I suppose. One with a television. There’s probably a match on that we could watch together. We wouldn’t even need to talk.

But I _do_ want to talk to him; I just don’t know how to.

I still haven’t thought of anything by the time we get to the bottom of the stairs and exit into the Great Court.

I don’t usually spend much time here when I’m visiting the museum—too much sun streaming in through the glass panels in the ceiling—but it’s dark outside now, and artificial light doesn’t bother me. The Shakespeare exhibition that I chose not to take Snow to earlier is being advertised on long banners hanging down the side of the Reading Room space. The café is closed.

Fuck. We have to go _somewhere._ There has to be a next location.

Does Snow like bowling? The cinema? West End musicals? (What does one even _do_ in London besides go to museums?)

“I can wait outside,” Snow says, which doesn’t make sense until I realise that, from his perspective, I’ve been scowling at the Shakespeare exhibition banners for several minutes.

“If you want to go in,” he says as I shake my head. “I don’t mind.”

“ _No_ ,” I say—probably too forcefully. “I need you here.”

I know Snow is trying to be thoughtful, and that I should appreciate it. But we’re not splitting up. If I let him think he doesn’t have to stay with me for the evening, I’ll lose him.

At least I work well under pressure. The panic and Snow’s question have given me an idea.

I’m not sure why, but Snow does enjoy the ridiculous quests the Mage sends him on. Quests that all seem to be centred around retrieving some sort of obscure magickal object from impossibly dangerous conditions.

Perhaps it’s because he’s good at it. Fighting. I can understand wanting to do things you’re good at. And there’s probably an adrenalin rush, similar to playing a football match. Perhaps he just gets off on danger. Whatever it is, I can work with it.

“I need your help,” I tell him. “To get what we came here for.”

Snow’s eyebrows rise. “Something to defeat the vampires?” he says quickly. _And_ loudly. Several people turn to look at us, but Snow doesn’t notice.

I’ve got him.

“Just come on.”

He follows me to the reception, so I can pay for tickets. Then into the slightly darker interior of the Reading Room.

I’ve been in here a few times since they reopened it for exhibitions. It always looks different, the space divided up into walkways with painted plyboard. I barely remember what it looked like when it was a library, although I know I did come here with my mother.

Walking around it now, there’s hardly any sign of what it was. There are desks under our feet and bookshelves hidden in the walls. The lights are hanging low, much lower than the domed ceiling. There are still books, here, but they’re all in glass cases. 

“So, what are we looking for?” Snow asks, more quietly now. “A spell?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Snow is clearly confused. I nod towards the closest cabinet where a copy of the First Folio (the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s works, bound together only seven years after his death, practically a magickal relic) is displayed, open at a page from ‘MacBeth’.

“I’m going to steal that book,” I tell Snow under my breath. “The basis of modern spellcasting.”

Snow looks horrified—and intrigued.

“You can’t do that.”

He says it like a dare. (I knew he’d love this.) It doesn’t need a response, but I give him one anyway. Because he’s looking at me like I’m _mad,_ but in a way he likes.

“It’s research.”

“It’s _treason_.”

“Are you going to tell the queen?”

Snow scoffs. “No. I said I’d help you.”

“You did,” I agree.

“What’s the plan, then?”

I shrug. I’m a magician—how does he _think_ I’m going to take it? I’ll use magic. What does he want, a blow-by-blow summary of the spells?

“ **Nothing to see here** ,” I tell him. “ **A golden key opens every door;** and **silence is golden** on the alarm.”

“And?” Snow says.

“And then we leave, Snow. With the book. I’m not planning on visiting the gift shop.”

He sighs. “What about the cameras? What about the people who really want to see you?” He means: people who aren’t fooled by **Nothing to see here**.

Really, I should have guessed he’d raise that objection since I’ve never been able to use the spell successfully against _him_ , for example. But I think he’s giving the Normal security guards who work here too much credit. They can’t all be as dedicated to their jobs as Snow is to making me miserable.

“ _And_ ,” Snow says, “what about when they find the book’s missing? You should at least put something in its place. Hang on––”

I watch as he weaves his way through the tourists. Then bumps into one woman on purpose, so that she drops her bags. When he stands back up after helping her collect everything, he has her copy of the exhibition guide—a large paperback, approximately the same size as the First Folio—in his hand. She doesn’t notice, even though he’s using no magic as far as I can see.

“Here,” he says, handing it to me. (I’ve already used **Nothing to see here** , but of course it doesn’t work on Snow.) “If you transfigure this, the spell will probably last a few years.”

“Right. And I’ve cast **Through a glass darkly** on the cameras,” I tell him as I change the guidebook into a copy of the relevant seventeenth-century manuscript. “Wait here.”

I had thought about asking Snow to do the actual _stealing._ He clearly knows what he’s doing (how many of our country’s magickal artefacts are now replicas created by Bunce?), but I don’t want him to think I can’t do it. That I wouldn’t dirty my hands.

The alarm is easy to silence and the case swings open under my spell. I’m just reaching inside to pull out the book when I hear a soft voice.

“Mummy, what’s that man doing?”

It’s a child. A little girl, with the same reddish-gold skin I used to have. She’s tugging at her mother’s sleeve and pointing at me. She can _see_ me. 

My eyes search the room for Snow, who is also looking right at me because the spell _also_ doesn’t work on him. I must look panicked (I _am_ panicking), and Snow is frowning. Probably cursing me for my incompetence.

He takes a step forward—he’s going to leave me. (Great. This really is the _worst_ date. I’m about to be abandoned and then arrested). Instead he just grabs the back of someone’s coat and hauls the man round towards him.

“Oi—did you just say Hamlet is a pile of shit?”

His voice is loud. Belligerent. Most of the tourists around me—including the mother of the girl who saw me—swing towards him. The nearest security guard starts to move in Snow’s direction. I shove the real First Folio into my jacket, put the new one in its place, and close the cabinet.

I’m feeling rather hysterical. Adrenalin, mainly—but also because I can still hear Snow trying to remember enough about the plot of Hamlet to have an argument about it. Laughter is threatening to bubble up over my lips.

“Come on, Snow—it’s not _that_ good,” I say as I pass him.

He holds up his hands in apology, then staggers after me as we wind our way through the rest of the exhibition. He’s laughing too.

“You got the book, then?”

“Obviously.”

He slaps me on the shoulder. It’s the sort of thing you do to a friend, rather than a date, but that’s better than I’ve ever managed before. I grin back at him.

“And you don’t need any more, right?” Snow says.

I don’t even need _this_ one.

But it’s working—this ridiculous idea. He’s having fun. _With me._ And honestly, what else do I have to look forward to this evening? A meal I won’t eat. And the opportunity to grill vampires about who killed my mother. Neither activity is likely to endear me to Snow.

This is probably the only non-date I’ll ever get.

I have to make it count.

**_Five years later …_ **

Simon and I are due to meet Penelope for dinner tonight. Covent Garden. Curry. She’s late—as always, swept up in discussion with her supervisor and I’ve dragged Simon to the British Museum. Because I can do that now.

We’re back in the Egyptian section, drifting between glass-fronted display cases. Simon is holding my hand.

It’s not a date.

Simon and I don’t go on dates. (I’m not sure anyone actually _goes_ on dates, apart from Fiona and people on television.) We didn’t even before it got bad and even now—now that it’s good—we don’t _date._

We spend time together. Sometimes with Penelope; sometimes alone. We watch television together. Play football together. I read, and he scrolls through Twitter. Sometimes we even go to museums, though admittedly not often, since Simon can only read plaques and look at artefacts for so long.

“Did you ever bring them back?” he says now—which makes no sense in context, so I know his mind must already be drifting.

“Bring what back?”

“You know.” Simon lowers his voice. _“The books we stole from the queen.”_

Ah.

In the end it was eight. (Which just goes to show how desperate I was back then.) Eight books that he and I stole from the Shakespeare exhibition. Eight books now shelved in my father’s Oxford library. I’ve spent several happy evenings there since, reading through the fragile pages. I definitely did _not_ intend to return them.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say loudly enough that any audio monitoring systems will pick it up.

Simon snorts as I steer him towards another of the display cases. “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

I smile at him in the reflection on the glass, our faces superimposed over the golden burial objects inside, including the large sarcophagus my mother once held me up in front of, while whispering in my ear.

Then I smile more broadly as Simon slides his arms around my waist and rests his chin on my shoulder.

“You should, though,” he prompts.

I pretend to consider this. “Perhaps I’ll think about it … _after_ the British return the artefacts they stole from the rest of the world.”

Simon huffs. I grin as his warm breath hits my neck.

This is all I ever wanted, really.

Simon. His presence. His attention. The chance to argue with him, without the result being life or death for one of us.

So, I don’t need the books anymore (obviously I never needed them), although I have enjoyed having them. They were only ever a means to an end—this end. And end where Simon Snow and I don’t date, we just breathe each other like air.

I can bring them back—later.

Simon has started frowning down at the sarcophagus in the case.

“What is it?” I ask him as he looks back at me, still frowning.

“This bloke looks exactly like you,” Simon says, pointing at the coffin. “Look at the eyebrows. Do you think you might be related?”

Things are different now, five years on. He’s with me as my boyfriend, not as my back-up. And so, I tell him. About my mother and the British Museum.

And I tell him why it’s important to me that we’re here.

**Author's Note:**

> [An approximate timeline on events, some facts about the British Museum Reading Room, and driving in London](https://captain-aralias.tumblr.com/post/612158902164979712/this-is-why-hes-never-had-a-girlfriend-carry) can be found on my Tumblr.
> 
> As can [more than 2,000 words of deleted material](https://captain-aralias.tumblr.com/post/624894232242569217/trivia-tuesday-the-sweet-fruit-of-a-palm-tree).


End file.
